As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
As processors, graphics cards, random access memory (RAM) and other components in information handling systems have increased in clock speed and power consumption, the amount of heat produced by such components as a side-effect of normal operation has also increased. Often, the temperatures of these components need to be kept within a reasonable range to prevent overheating, instability, malfunction, and damage leading to a shortened component lifespan. Accordingly, heatsinks and/or air movers (e.g., cooling fans and blowers) have often been used in information handling systems to cool information handling systems and their components.
Various challenges may arise in the cooling context (as well as other contexts) based on the difficulty of determining the physical location of devices and components within an information handling system. Typically, an information handling system may only have access to a logical designator (e.g., a slot number or the like), which may not be easily converted into a physical location (e.g., front vs. back, left vs. right, top vs. bottom, etc.). This may be the case, for example, because different models or configurations of information handling systems may have different numbering schemes for their connectors, and they may not always correspond in a straightforward way to physical location.
This disclosure thus provides techniques for determining physical locations of information handling resources within an information handling system, as well as controlling such resources based on their locations. In addition to the cooling applications noted above, this may also provide benefits in various other scenarios in the manufacture and use of information handling systems, an discuss in more detail below.
It should be noted that the discussion of a technique in the Background section of this disclosure does not constitute an admission of prior-art status. No such admissions are made herein, unless clearly and unambiguously identified as such.